In only hours, The Office will be airing its final episode of its entire series.
That's huge.
The Office has been on for a long time. Definitely not long compared to other series, or certain soaps which have been on for several decades, but still long enough. In the series' universe, it's been nine years. It's actually only been eight - as a March mid-season replacement, the first season was only six episodes, with the second season beginning the same year.
Typically, in reality, a documentary crew would probably only have hung around for two episodes' worth of material, but instead they fictionally stuck around for an entire nine years. That's enough material for months of hour-long documentary specials. The final episode has the crew returning six months after the airing of the documentary; perhaps that's how long it took for them to air the entire nine-year production. I'm not going to do the math.
At the age of fourteen, I began watching the series by its second episode. I don't think I was exactly hooked on to it by then and only mildly interested, but I definitely started watching it constantly by the time it was halfway through its second season, becoming hooked on it by then. From then on I watched it every week, seeing almost every episode of all the seasons.
No one in the series is in any way similar to how they were when it started; all the characters have definitely matured and changed through the years. I'm almost surprised they managed to continue it this long without running out of ideas, but character development was always key in its longevity, especially after the huge Jim/Pam affair was largely resolved by the fourth season. In fact it's never been perfectly resolved, at least until the last episode, when he finally gave her a romantic note he'd written for her years ago to prove she was always everything to him.
It will be a very big send off for everyone involved. It's cool, I find, to look at all the time that's gone by...I hadn't even started high school when it debuted. It's ending the same year I finish college - after having returned to it a second time, with a year off in between.
A one-hour retrospective of the series will air before the actual super-sized episode, which will be interesting. Those things always are. It's almost 5pm. The workday is just about done. After eight years (nine in the series), it'll finally be over.
I'll miss it.
Justin C.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Rise and Fall of NewsRadio, The
Briefly, I had thought and played with - and even written a post - on my 'Next' blog stating that I will start writing on there primarily, and do a sort of scale-back of this one while at the same time sort of discontinuing it.
But I don't know. The Next thing was a school multimedia effort, photography-based and focused, and I am unsure if I want to expand upon my personal life on it.
Also, it would take a very long time to go over every post I've written on here and decide whether or not I should remove it, which would also take a lot of consideration and thinking. There were over two-hundred posts in 2010 - which as a year was a very emotionally turbulant one. I just don't really have the energy or interest.
So I'll just move on from the past on here (the negative or unfiltered parts of it, not the positive posts or funny ones) and write what comes to mind that's appropriate and opinion-based, or story-based.
Over a time, whenever I got bored and went on Wikipedia, and ended up looking up articles related to The Simpsons, in terms of their guest stars and such, I repeatedly came across someone named Phil Hartman. He'd voiced a few characters on the show, particularly B-actor Troy McClure and an inept attorney named Lionel Hutz. The name sounded slightly familiar so I looked him up to see particularly images of the man; the best one I found at the time was a cast image of the show NewsRadio when I went to his filmography and clicked on a few of the titles or shows.
I would end up reading selected areas of that TV show on Wikipedia, particularly the characters section (where the cast photo appeared) and slowly found more familiarity in terms of who was in the cast: Canadian Dave Foley, whom I knew as a minor character in the film Blast From the Past and as a host of Thank God You're Here (he also did, to my interest, Kids in the Hall), Maura Tierney (whom I recognized as a guest character on a then-recent episode of The Office) Stephen Root (Office Space, Bill on King of the Hill, Dodgeball), and Vicki Lewis, whom I recognized as Lars's wife from Mousehunt. To my surprise, I also saw Joe Rogen, who I knew as the host of Fear Factor, though I'd always thought he was simply a host, not an actor. The only people I didn't recognize from other films or shows were Andy Dick and Kandi Alexander, though I probably saw them somewhere without realizing it (the latter was on ER, a show my mother watched, while the former was a guest star or minor character on some show or film I've forgotten now that I'd seen).
As for Phil Hartman, he was familiar because he'd played antagonistic characters in Jingle all the Way and Small Soldiers, films I saw as a younger kid and remembered him as such. He was virtually the same character in both films in my memory - an obnoxious, pretentious next door neighbour.
It was a Wikipedia article I came back to a few times, out of slight interest, though I never thought of actually watching it until it came up in my suggested viewing on Netflix. As soon as I saw that, I decided it would be neat to spend my empty time doing, especially seeing all these people I'd seen briefly elsewhere in a twenty-minute episodic format. That and the fact that it was a show starting in the mid-90s, so other than Hartman, every actor I'd recognized was probably younger or a lot younger than I'd last seen them in recent works.
I went through the first two seasons of the show extremely content and happy. I loved seeing these actors as these characters in the first episode for the first time, especialy Phil Hartman's first scenes as Bill McNeal ("we're going out for lunch to honor Cathy's birthday" though the Cathy character loathes celebrating her birthday and the entire staff had already celebrated it at the station - exactly the annoying character Hartman made himself out to be). I had a feeling of warmth and pride for that actor early on in the series particularly since he wouldn't live too much longer in that time, thanks to his wife. It may have happened fifteen years ago or so, but I don't think I'm late in appreciating him or his work or feeling anger towards his death simply because I am.
I also fell in love with Vicki's Beth character. While I do have an attraction for redheads, it was her wit and sultry personality that brought me around - and her seemingly eclectic, random clothing style. She basically set up a lot of great scenes early on in the show and could appear to be both witty and childish at the same time. I didn't see any of the greedy anger she throws at Lars in Mousehunt at all, which goes to show how talented an actor can be when he or she basically transforms into a completely different person.
Andy Dick's Matthew was the guy who spend his time falling on the floor or otherwise getting mildly injured...he seemed funny in the way that he could be completely competent at something but not care for it while bagging to be something or do something he'd be inept at. Joe Rogen's Joe character (difference is the Garelli last name, which no one on the show remembers) makes his own duct tape, which he uses for everything, and doesn't seem anything at all like he does on Fear Factor (largely due to how much younger he looks despite the mere five-year difference).
The show gave me a version of Stephen Root that isn't a bumbling, gibberish-speaking character that I saw elswhere. It was nice.
Dave and Maura's characters were the kind of people who ended up in an office relationship, which for some reason I liked despite the fact it was based on their shared sexual attraction to each other's anger.
The first and second seasons had the characters at their best...the plotlines were interesting and funny and I just loved the show as it was in its early stages, like you'd like anything interesting for the first time or early on. The downfall of the entire charade was, of course, Phil Hartman's impending death as I made my way through the third and fourth seasons, which slowly seemed to become more lunatic or unusual. The show seems golden from its start to through most of the third season if not all of it, and then the fourth season seems to become more absurd and hard for good plotlines. The ticking clock for Hartman was the thing that hung over me as I reached the end.
I didn't watch the fifth season except for the first episode, which I thought was sweet and gentle. I read that everyone had trouble keeping composure during the filming of the episode, and when they slowly lost it after Dave reads Bill's farewell letter, the emotions were definitely genuine and real. They weren't acting, they were really sad. I can completely sympathize.
The thing about this is that things undoubtedly change or fall away as time goes on. I enjoyed the show extremely when I started watching it, with high expectations and warm feelings for all of the characters, especially Hartman. But the show naturally matured and slowly got more silly as time went on, and people do die, whether naturally or unnaturally, so you lose or misplace things or feelings, elements. It's like a child you father and he's an enjoyable, bright, cute, loving thing when he's young and innocent, then he matures and reaches his sullen, self-involved teenage years and you lose a lot of what you had in the past, until he matures into a responsible adult and makes you proud with his accomplishments. The show was like that for me. It had a bright, happy, warm rise in the beginning which tapered off in the later years and abruptly ended with Hartman's death.
For me, it's kind of sad. You can not un-watch or un-experience something and start over from the beginning when it was new and fun and warm. I kind of wish I could do that with the show. It goes to show that nothing lasts forever, no matter what it is. The only exception, in my belief, is love.
Other than Netflix, NewsRadio is also available to watch on YouTube. I'd go and check it out.
Justin C.
But I don't know. The Next thing was a school multimedia effort, photography-based and focused, and I am unsure if I want to expand upon my personal life on it.
Also, it would take a very long time to go over every post I've written on here and decide whether or not I should remove it, which would also take a lot of consideration and thinking. There were over two-hundred posts in 2010 - which as a year was a very emotionally turbulant one. I just don't really have the energy or interest.
So I'll just move on from the past on here (the negative or unfiltered parts of it, not the positive posts or funny ones) and write what comes to mind that's appropriate and opinion-based, or story-based.
Over a time, whenever I got bored and went on Wikipedia, and ended up looking up articles related to The Simpsons, in terms of their guest stars and such, I repeatedly came across someone named Phil Hartman. He'd voiced a few characters on the show, particularly B-actor Troy McClure and an inept attorney named Lionel Hutz. The name sounded slightly familiar so I looked him up to see particularly images of the man; the best one I found at the time was a cast image of the show NewsRadio when I went to his filmography and clicked on a few of the titles or shows.
I would end up reading selected areas of that TV show on Wikipedia, particularly the characters section (where the cast photo appeared) and slowly found more familiarity in terms of who was in the cast: Canadian Dave Foley, whom I knew as a minor character in the film Blast From the Past and as a host of Thank God You're Here (he also did, to my interest, Kids in the Hall), Maura Tierney (whom I recognized as a guest character on a then-recent episode of The Office) Stephen Root (Office Space, Bill on King of the Hill, Dodgeball), and Vicki Lewis, whom I recognized as Lars's wife from Mousehunt. To my surprise, I also saw Joe Rogen, who I knew as the host of Fear Factor, though I'd always thought he was simply a host, not an actor. The only people I didn't recognize from other films or shows were Andy Dick and Kandi Alexander, though I probably saw them somewhere without realizing it (the latter was on ER, a show my mother watched, while the former was a guest star or minor character on some show or film I've forgotten now that I'd seen).
As for Phil Hartman, he was familiar because he'd played antagonistic characters in Jingle all the Way and Small Soldiers, films I saw as a younger kid and remembered him as such. He was virtually the same character in both films in my memory - an obnoxious, pretentious next door neighbour.
It was a Wikipedia article I came back to a few times, out of slight interest, though I never thought of actually watching it until it came up in my suggested viewing on Netflix. As soon as I saw that, I decided it would be neat to spend my empty time doing, especially seeing all these people I'd seen briefly elsewhere in a twenty-minute episodic format. That and the fact that it was a show starting in the mid-90s, so other than Hartman, every actor I'd recognized was probably younger or a lot younger than I'd last seen them in recent works.
I went through the first two seasons of the show extremely content and happy. I loved seeing these actors as these characters in the first episode for the first time, especialy Phil Hartman's first scenes as Bill McNeal ("we're going out for lunch to honor Cathy's birthday" though the Cathy character loathes celebrating her birthday and the entire staff had already celebrated it at the station - exactly the annoying character Hartman made himself out to be). I had a feeling of warmth and pride for that actor early on in the series particularly since he wouldn't live too much longer in that time, thanks to his wife. It may have happened fifteen years ago or so, but I don't think I'm late in appreciating him or his work or feeling anger towards his death simply because I am.
I also fell in love with Vicki's Beth character. While I do have an attraction for redheads, it was her wit and sultry personality that brought me around - and her seemingly eclectic, random clothing style. She basically set up a lot of great scenes early on in the show and could appear to be both witty and childish at the same time. I didn't see any of the greedy anger she throws at Lars in Mousehunt at all, which goes to show how talented an actor can be when he or she basically transforms into a completely different person.
Andy Dick's Matthew was the guy who spend his time falling on the floor or otherwise getting mildly injured...he seemed funny in the way that he could be completely competent at something but not care for it while bagging to be something or do something he'd be inept at. Joe Rogen's Joe character (difference is the Garelli last name, which no one on the show remembers) makes his own duct tape, which he uses for everything, and doesn't seem anything at all like he does on Fear Factor (largely due to how much younger he looks despite the mere five-year difference).
The show gave me a version of Stephen Root that isn't a bumbling, gibberish-speaking character that I saw elswhere. It was nice.
Dave and Maura's characters were the kind of people who ended up in an office relationship, which for some reason I liked despite the fact it was based on their shared sexual attraction to each other's anger.
The first and second seasons had the characters at their best...the plotlines were interesting and funny and I just loved the show as it was in its early stages, like you'd like anything interesting for the first time or early on. The downfall of the entire charade was, of course, Phil Hartman's impending death as I made my way through the third and fourth seasons, which slowly seemed to become more lunatic or unusual. The show seems golden from its start to through most of the third season if not all of it, and then the fourth season seems to become more absurd and hard for good plotlines. The ticking clock for Hartman was the thing that hung over me as I reached the end.
I didn't watch the fifth season except for the first episode, which I thought was sweet and gentle. I read that everyone had trouble keeping composure during the filming of the episode, and when they slowly lost it after Dave reads Bill's farewell letter, the emotions were definitely genuine and real. They weren't acting, they were really sad. I can completely sympathize.
The thing about this is that things undoubtedly change or fall away as time goes on. I enjoyed the show extremely when I started watching it, with high expectations and warm feelings for all of the characters, especially Hartman. But the show naturally matured and slowly got more silly as time went on, and people do die, whether naturally or unnaturally, so you lose or misplace things or feelings, elements. It's like a child you father and he's an enjoyable, bright, cute, loving thing when he's young and innocent, then he matures and reaches his sullen, self-involved teenage years and you lose a lot of what you had in the past, until he matures into a responsible adult and makes you proud with his accomplishments. The show was like that for me. It had a bright, happy, warm rise in the beginning which tapered off in the later years and abruptly ended with Hartman's death.
For me, it's kind of sad. You can not un-watch or un-experience something and start over from the beginning when it was new and fun and warm. I kind of wish I could do that with the show. It goes to show that nothing lasts forever, no matter what it is. The only exception, in my belief, is love.
Other than Netflix, NewsRadio is also available to watch on YouTube. I'd go and check it out.
Justin C.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
April 3rd, 2013, 1:57am
As I wrote the title.
What am I doing here at 2am, months after I wrote here previously? I don't know. Why not?
Time keeps moving, and life goes on. How am I about that? Eh. I have no issues with anything. I'm a lightly bored young man who is almost twenty-two years old.
I remember when I started this blog. It was my half-brother's ninth birthday. I started it because I found out it was simply possible with my Google account after a Media studies class that day. But I had no idea what to talk about, and hardly wrote anything, until I found a sort of focus or niche by the late spring the following year.
I won't go further. I've already documented the history of this blog. I've already written down the motivation for my increased frequencies of writing and my decreased frequencies. I haven't shut it down for two reasons: One, it's a historical record of words typed and presented over time, displaying my frame of mind, emotional stability, and maturity, and two: one of my original purposes was to keep at this for many years, until it virtually becomes a documented account of my life, all for posterity sake. I was only seventeen when I activated and wrote my first post. I am miles away from the Justin that wrote it. I am extremely sure that at some point in the past on here, I've talked at length about my interest in record, time and change, and documenting that.
In my present state of mind, after looking through some of the old stuff, I will honestly say I am baffled and dismayed with my past self for writing certain things. Or writing private or intimate information up on here. While I haven't directly talked explicitly about her intimately, I've said way too much about one girl, and my relationship with her. I've written the name of my street down. I've talked about things most people would probably get the wrong idea out of, and is best kept in my mind, or in a private journal. I've avoided, except for one or two instances, the name of the famous (on here) 'In the City' person, yet I've referenced or talked about or mentioned or explicitly recorded so much that it is painfully obvious.
One of my continuous weaknesses, for many years, has been an inability to filter out what not to reveal or write. It should make me someone who shouldn't have a blog. Therefore I have the personage of a person who wears his emotions on his sleeve and talks about everything that it's almost cringing to listen to.
In a way, if I didn't keep maturing, it would have been good that I didn't write often on here, except for the odd song review or observation. The fact is, though, that had I not continued to mature, I wouldn't be denouncing some of the past stuff I'd put down on here.
Time ticks forward. Life goes on.
We'll see what comes tomorrow, next month, next year, next decade. I'm sure I'll still be around. I'll just be more conservative in my choice of words, posts, and record.
Justin C.
What am I doing here at 2am, months after I wrote here previously? I don't know. Why not?
Time keeps moving, and life goes on. How am I about that? Eh. I have no issues with anything. I'm a lightly bored young man who is almost twenty-two years old.
I remember when I started this blog. It was my half-brother's ninth birthday. I started it because I found out it was simply possible with my Google account after a Media studies class that day. But I had no idea what to talk about, and hardly wrote anything, until I found a sort of focus or niche by the late spring the following year.
I won't go further. I've already documented the history of this blog. I've already written down the motivation for my increased frequencies of writing and my decreased frequencies. I haven't shut it down for two reasons: One, it's a historical record of words typed and presented over time, displaying my frame of mind, emotional stability, and maturity, and two: one of my original purposes was to keep at this for many years, until it virtually becomes a documented account of my life, all for posterity sake. I was only seventeen when I activated and wrote my first post. I am miles away from the Justin that wrote it. I am extremely sure that at some point in the past on here, I've talked at length about my interest in record, time and change, and documenting that.
In my present state of mind, after looking through some of the old stuff, I will honestly say I am baffled and dismayed with my past self for writing certain things. Or writing private or intimate information up on here. While I haven't directly talked explicitly about her intimately, I've said way too much about one girl, and my relationship with her. I've written the name of my street down. I've talked about things most people would probably get the wrong idea out of, and is best kept in my mind, or in a private journal. I've avoided, except for one or two instances, the name of the famous (on here) 'In the City' person, yet I've referenced or talked about or mentioned or explicitly recorded so much that it is painfully obvious.
One of my continuous weaknesses, for many years, has been an inability to filter out what not to reveal or write. It should make me someone who shouldn't have a blog. Therefore I have the personage of a person who wears his emotions on his sleeve and talks about everything that it's almost cringing to listen to.
In a way, if I didn't keep maturing, it would have been good that I didn't write often on here, except for the odd song review or observation. The fact is, though, that had I not continued to mature, I wouldn't be denouncing some of the past stuff I'd put down on here.
Time ticks forward. Life goes on.
We'll see what comes tomorrow, next month, next year, next decade. I'm sure I'll still be around. I'll just be more conservative in my choice of words, posts, and record.
Justin C.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Feeling, The
Well, it's been a few years since you could scroll to the bottom of this page and be back in time to over a year ago before even hitting 'older' at the very bottom.
Revisiting a blog that's become the #1 choice for those looking for the one-hundredth meridian in Canada, or someone named Brooke Ruskin, it's quite sparse. But I still write. Not about the longitude line, or about a girl with that particular name, but in general. In March last year, I came up with a concept and even full-season-length plot lines for an episodic television series. I wrote songs - mostly last year - and I also wrote an entire short story, or novella, or whatever you want to call it. Two short stories actually, and a third that's still unfinished.
To explain again why I haven't hung around here writing song reviews or life observations or tributes to dead cats or old friends or ponderings on girls or statements on my synesthesia or Asperger's Syndrome or mentions of a girl and a song called 'In the City' or Madness or personal milestones or dreams or wishes...I simply have no interest.
It is the honest truth. And to further it even more, a large amount of my motivation, at least for material produced by me between late 2009 and mid-2011, was my knowledge that the girl people have outlined to the right would simply read it. Dissect it. Understand my thoughts and feelings. Know where I'm coming from. Maybe that's why the name is popular.
To a smaller extent, I also had a small motivation going for the girl whose initials can be found on standard pencils, as well as another one with red hair to an even smaller extent, but there's no motivation around any of them anymore. This is the full honest truth. This blog, in the past, has been helped along by the fact that girls I liked will read it. Maybe understand me better since I express myself better in writing than I do verbally.
Now, of course, this doesn't mean I will not continue to write this in the future anymore. Maybe someone else of the opposite sex will come along and inspire me again.
Now, of course, the opposite sex is not the chief, and only, reason I write here at all.
It's the reason I write here often.
Did you know I drive a car now? I didn't mention it four months ago.
The title of the post has nothing to do with what I have written so far and all to do with what I am about to begin now: The idea that there is a type or a face or a chosen standard is bullshit.
I failed to write in that long run-on sentence above the phrase 'emotional growth.' In the years I have had this blog active, I have continuously examined and analyzed my track record in types of girls based on their hair, face and eyes. I have never, until recently, stopped to think of that as rather shallow.
Ironically, I have always hated the thought that I was shallow, but limiting everything to the physical beauty of a face or hair color is being that exactly.
I will state that I am fascinated by how attraction works when you take into account faces, similarities between them, genetic heritage (this interest projected only on faces) and lookalikes. Perhaps that's part of what drove all the talk in previous posts about what/who I've always liked and why, all by examining and describing their faces and hair color and pointing out facial 'types' that arose. But here's the real answer to attraction: It's deep down.
It sounds like it's always been an obvious answer, and I've always thought about it, but I've never actually felt it before. Well, I have, with one person, but I never focused or thought about it, just pushed it aside, because her face wasn't the 'type.' It didn't look like this:
The face in that screenshot definitely is attractive - the shape, the hair/color, and above all the green eyes - but it doesn't mean I or anyone has to look for and pursue girls with such features. No one should limit themselves like that. Kean in that image looks like the girl I met in college, the one via the organ in that 'In the City' B-side, and even a little bit like my aunt (when she was younger). None of those girls have given me more than physical attraction to them and delightful interest, some of them pleasant friendship (for awhile), but no more. (My aunt is excluded from all of that of course due to our relation). I like that 'look,' but it has only minor meaning in the whole scale of things.
The real answer is that you will know deep down when someone strikes you a certain way, and not only because of how he/she looks. There was a girl at the A&W who for some reason struck me a certain way as looking like someone I knew - but not looking like them at all. It wasn't how she looked; it was how she appealed to me, in exactly the same way the other girl with the red hair did. They didn't look the same, they appealed to me the same. I got that feeling.
I will always be attracted to that 'face' and perhaps I will even end up with someone who looks like that, but the face isn't the only reason. I probably won't have a girlfriend who looks like that at all. I once decided I knew I wasn't attracted to blonde-haired girls. I don't know squat. The person who really had an affect on me is the one who works at Donald's Foods in Wal-Mart in the summer, has auburn hair and tawny eyes (yes, I am almost quoting 'I Ran (So Far Away) by A Flock of Seagulls but it's true) and is, coincidentally, one of the best friends of the girl whose initials can be noticed as a pencil grading. I had lunch with both of them three years ago.
Best part, we still actively keep in touch with interest and smiley faces.
Justin C.
Revisiting a blog that's become the #1 choice for those looking for the one-hundredth meridian in Canada, or someone named Brooke Ruskin, it's quite sparse. But I still write. Not about the longitude line, or about a girl with that particular name, but in general. In March last year, I came up with a concept and even full-season-length plot lines for an episodic television series. I wrote songs - mostly last year - and I also wrote an entire short story, or novella, or whatever you want to call it. Two short stories actually, and a third that's still unfinished.
To explain again why I haven't hung around here writing song reviews or life observations or tributes to dead cats or old friends or ponderings on girls or statements on my synesthesia or Asperger's Syndrome or mentions of a girl and a song called 'In the City' or Madness or personal milestones or dreams or wishes...I simply have no interest.
It is the honest truth. And to further it even more, a large amount of my motivation, at least for material produced by me between late 2009 and mid-2011, was my knowledge that the girl people have outlined to the right would simply read it. Dissect it. Understand my thoughts and feelings. Know where I'm coming from. Maybe that's why the name is popular.
To a smaller extent, I also had a small motivation going for the girl whose initials can be found on standard pencils, as well as another one with red hair to an even smaller extent, but there's no motivation around any of them anymore. This is the full honest truth. This blog, in the past, has been helped along by the fact that girls I liked will read it. Maybe understand me better since I express myself better in writing than I do verbally.
Now, of course, this doesn't mean I will not continue to write this in the future anymore. Maybe someone else of the opposite sex will come along and inspire me again.
Now, of course, the opposite sex is not the chief, and only, reason I write here at all.
It's the reason I write here often.
Did you know I drive a car now? I didn't mention it four months ago.
The title of the post has nothing to do with what I have written so far and all to do with what I am about to begin now: The idea that there is a type or a face or a chosen standard is bullshit.
I failed to write in that long run-on sentence above the phrase 'emotional growth.' In the years I have had this blog active, I have continuously examined and analyzed my track record in types of girls based on their hair, face and eyes. I have never, until recently, stopped to think of that as rather shallow.
Ironically, I have always hated the thought that I was shallow, but limiting everything to the physical beauty of a face or hair color is being that exactly.
I will state that I am fascinated by how attraction works when you take into account faces, similarities between them, genetic heritage (this interest projected only on faces) and lookalikes. Perhaps that's part of what drove all the talk in previous posts about what/who I've always liked and why, all by examining and describing their faces and hair color and pointing out facial 'types' that arose. But here's the real answer to attraction: It's deep down.
It sounds like it's always been an obvious answer, and I've always thought about it, but I've never actually felt it before. Well, I have, with one person, but I never focused or thought about it, just pushed it aside, because her face wasn't the 'type.' It didn't look like this:
Screenshot of Sherry Kean in her music video for her 1984 song 'I Want You Back'
The face in that screenshot definitely is attractive - the shape, the hair/color, and above all the green eyes - but it doesn't mean I or anyone has to look for and pursue girls with such features. No one should limit themselves like that. Kean in that image looks like the girl I met in college, the one via the organ in that 'In the City' B-side, and even a little bit like my aunt (when she was younger). None of those girls have given me more than physical attraction to them and delightful interest, some of them pleasant friendship (for awhile), but no more. (My aunt is excluded from all of that of course due to our relation). I like that 'look,' but it has only minor meaning in the whole scale of things.
The real answer is that you will know deep down when someone strikes you a certain way, and not only because of how he/she looks. There was a girl at the A&W who for some reason struck me a certain way as looking like someone I knew - but not looking like them at all. It wasn't how she looked; it was how she appealed to me, in exactly the same way the other girl with the red hair did. They didn't look the same, they appealed to me the same. I got that feeling.
I will always be attracted to that 'face' and perhaps I will even end up with someone who looks like that, but the face isn't the only reason. I probably won't have a girlfriend who looks like that at all. I once decided I knew I wasn't attracted to blonde-haired girls. I don't know squat. The person who really had an affect on me is the one who works at Donald's Foods in Wal-Mart in the summer, has auburn hair and tawny eyes (yes, I am almost quoting 'I Ran (So Far Away) by A Flock of Seagulls but it's true) and is, coincidentally, one of the best friends of the girl whose initials can be noticed as a pencil grading. I had lunch with both of them three years ago.
Best part, we still actively keep in touch with interest and smiley faces.
Justin C.
Monday, December 31, 2012
The Future Public Servant
I'll start with this: No one knows you better than your mom. No one understands you better, and no one loves you more, or cares for you more.
Three years ago, I began Professional Writing in college. I wasn't the key person to apply. My mother thought I should. She went ahead and put it together. Her opinion was that it was versatile. I applied for that and photography at the same time, but by then, photography was full.
At the same time, I didn't really have much clue as to what I would go on to do. I wasn't sure what I was interested in enough to make a career with. Not many people are at that age I would think. But I did know that I enjoyed doing photography - and that I did not want to do what everyone did and head into government, become a public servant.
My stance was, my whole adult family has or had careers in one government department or other, on both sides, and I wanted to be different. I felt it was boring and mundane, and rather frustrating at times (hearing my mother talk about situations now and then about work). I felt that this city was nothing but an employer for cultureless, monotonous government workers. I didn't want to follow everyone else. A career should be something you're passionate about to work for.
I dropped out of Professional Writing. I failed the first Communications class, which was the one class out of the rest that I didn't keep up with. It was tedious and extremely self-disciplined. I was learning the lesson that college professors don't chase after you for late work, all the hard way, and the class in which I was expected to read the entire textbook myself on my own time (which was tedious as hell) was the class I couldn't deal with. I was busy worrying about the other classes or being distracted by a long-distance friendship with a girl in Alberta. That removed two classes from my second semester with which Communications was required as a prerequisite, and I ended up failing another class out of lack of interest. I'd already felt I was behind anyway, so I quit.
Two years later, after going through a program for youth that helps them figure things out and deciding to go for photography, I've finally clued in to what and why my mother had me apply for the original program. For one thing, the Photography program, a commercial-based two-year diploma thing, made me realize that I really use it as a medium for record-keeping and posterity, with little creative interest and hardly any huge passion, and for another, I am not an entrepreneur. I am not the kind of person who would find it easy to market and sell myself, and be an independent worker that makes his own work.
A photographer has an unstable career where he/she either finds work, or doesn't. Depending on the type of photography, the lengths one would go, and most importantly the market, being able to support oneself wouldn't come easy. Unless you had been around for a long time, owned a studio, and lived in Toronto or New York. Not Ottawa. I've realized that I'm hardly interested in any kind of photography other than aerial photography. I'm not interested in working my own way around. I don't want to move elsewhere. I don't want to work sixteen-hour days in a studio perfecting a food shoot or getting up at 4am to get the best light on a building for an architecture/real estate shot. I'm not a super-great people person, which portrait and wedding and consumer portraiture would require. I still have trouble getting the lighting right in the studio or elsewhere.
I like photography, but only as medium, only as a record. Otherwise I'm crazy for aerial photography, for which there is hardly a market for considering things like satellites, Google Earth, Bing Maps, and all the other entities out there. The point is, it is desirable to have a career you love or have a passion for, but it is still what you have to support yourself. I am a hundred times more creative with words than with photos. I write lyrics and stories all the time. I used to write on here a lot, as well as my proper blog...I post on Facebook probably too much. That, I have a passion for. And writing is a versatile thing to have a diploma for. At the end of the day, I'd rather have a 9-5 full time job that pays me enough to be independent and on my own rather than struggle with a photography career. Who is the largest employer in this city? The Federal Government.
That's the point in the end, at least the one my mother had: I can take photos as much as I want and write all the stories I desire, sure - and a career in the government, which is stable and well-paid - can support all that. That's what it's all about: Income, stability, and protection. I can become a civil servant, move up over time, and generate enough to easily support myself, live on my own, develop an independent lifestyle, and fulfil my life goals. They seem more likely and easy this way. I was too focused on being different and unique and not liking the idea of working for government to realize that it's rather the best way to go in terms of supporting me independently in the future. After all, it's not like I have to give up everything I like to do for the career...rather, it's a means to support my interests.
Government, at least in this city, is the key. My way in life is clear now, and has been obvious for a little while now - I just refused to accept that idea and look in the right direction. I'll finish photography, go back and finish writing, and enter the government as a public servant, funding my way to my own independence and life goals. Who cares if it's what everyone does? At least I can support myself and my needs, and grow up. Get away from horrible Wal-Mart, earn some money and grow some savings, take on some responsibilities and make decisions. Working as a public servant isn't horrible, after all, and I can exercise something I'm good at - writing.
Justin C.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Misunderstood
This past summer has really had me listening to a lot of Genesis, for which I only had previously known them for songs like 'Land of Confusion,' and 'I Can't Dance.'
I spent one day listening to their entire Abacab album on YouTube, and liked a few songs; the title track is unusual but catchy and endearing, and I completely understood 'No Reply at All,' an upbeat song about the lack of interest or communication in a relationship.
The song that outshines them all (at the moment) for me is 'Misunderstanding,' which is a short, simple song written by Phil Collins, likely on the subject of his wife's adultery on him. (I read that he'd written it during the sessions for his first solo album but decided to give it to Genesis and drum/sing it for their Duke album instead).
Synesthetically, the music is largely yellow to me, and it follows a simple riff - moving up note by note, and then skipping over the fourth note to the fifth, and coming back to the forth. There are only two verses that follow a separate pattern, and there's no bridge. It's a simple rock song with a piano and keyboard in it, with heavy, crashing drums at the end.
The element that sucked me in was Collins' falsetto oohing during the choruses. It just sound very pleasing to my ear. The song has other attractions to it but that was the main one at first. I also enjoy the guitar in the second, final verse, which sounds bright and simultaneously annoyed and stern to me. The big aspect that makes me extremely happy has to do with the piano starting an F chord in the verses at the same time the bright keyboard counterpart also starts the sound with a hit. The chord, played low on the piano, plus the bright keyboard, gives me an image of the face of a girl I've always liked (I will say she hypothetically looks exactly like, or is, the 'In the City' organ girl) and that face has a lot of concern and worry for me when I hear those sounds.
I've likened it to a scene from The Office: Dwight, as acting manager, has decided to fill his gun holster (which he'd received as a gift for obtaining his position) with an actual gun, and accidentally fires it, right next to Andy. The noise damages Andy's hearing, and Erin, the receptionist who had recently asked Andy out, reacts to his reaction and pain by running to his aid, extremely worried and concerned about him, likely because she likes him. That would be an example for the kind of concern or worry I see from that face, towards me (not necessarily because I got my ears affected by a gun) but generally, and it makes me very happy.
Collins does a great job during the choruses in singing the lyrics with what sounds like pain and dedication to believing that it's just a misunderstanding. At the same time he sounds like he knows it obviously isn't, but is desperate to believe that it is. The music kind of sounds like hardship to me, difficult times, especially when you incorporate the open hi-hat when the song begins the chorus. Like it's an extra thing to throw into the mix of difficult feelings.
I don't think it's often to hear songs sung by men directed at woman or their partners for their adultery or ungratefulness, but I could be wrong. Either way, this one's great. As for the music video, it very simply acts out the story of the lyrics, with Phil Collins driving around Los Angeles in a convertable (with Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford riding behind him in the back of a pickup truck with their instruments) and eventually coming to a stop outside his girlfriend's, only to find her talking to another man on the front walk. He has an unusual beard and Hawaiian shirt, but it works.
Music: A-
Lyrics: B+
It's a great Genesis song that's simple (unusual of most of their songs) and has a great lyric. Both the music and lyrics illustrate the song's tale and feelings well, which is what makes a song good.
Justin C.
I spent one day listening to their entire Abacab album on YouTube, and liked a few songs; the title track is unusual but catchy and endearing, and I completely understood 'No Reply at All,' an upbeat song about the lack of interest or communication in a relationship.
The song that outshines them all (at the moment) for me is 'Misunderstanding,' which is a short, simple song written by Phil Collins, likely on the subject of his wife's adultery on him. (I read that he'd written it during the sessions for his first solo album but decided to give it to Genesis and drum/sing it for their Duke album instead).
Synesthetically, the music is largely yellow to me, and it follows a simple riff - moving up note by note, and then skipping over the fourth note to the fifth, and coming back to the forth. There are only two verses that follow a separate pattern, and there's no bridge. It's a simple rock song with a piano and keyboard in it, with heavy, crashing drums at the end.
The element that sucked me in was Collins' falsetto oohing during the choruses. It just sound very pleasing to my ear. The song has other attractions to it but that was the main one at first. I also enjoy the guitar in the second, final verse, which sounds bright and simultaneously annoyed and stern to me. The big aspect that makes me extremely happy has to do with the piano starting an F chord in the verses at the same time the bright keyboard counterpart also starts the sound with a hit. The chord, played low on the piano, plus the bright keyboard, gives me an image of the face of a girl I've always liked (I will say she hypothetically looks exactly like, or is, the 'In the City' organ girl) and that face has a lot of concern and worry for me when I hear those sounds.
I've likened it to a scene from The Office: Dwight, as acting manager, has decided to fill his gun holster (which he'd received as a gift for obtaining his position) with an actual gun, and accidentally fires it, right next to Andy. The noise damages Andy's hearing, and Erin, the receptionist who had recently asked Andy out, reacts to his reaction and pain by running to his aid, extremely worried and concerned about him, likely because she likes him. That would be an example for the kind of concern or worry I see from that face, towards me (not necessarily because I got my ears affected by a gun) but generally, and it makes me very happy.
Collins does a great job during the choruses in singing the lyrics with what sounds like pain and dedication to believing that it's just a misunderstanding. At the same time he sounds like he knows it obviously isn't, but is desperate to believe that it is. The music kind of sounds like hardship to me, difficult times, especially when you incorporate the open hi-hat when the song begins the chorus. Like it's an extra thing to throw into the mix of difficult feelings.
I don't think it's often to hear songs sung by men directed at woman or their partners for their adultery or ungratefulness, but I could be wrong. Either way, this one's great. As for the music video, it very simply acts out the story of the lyrics, with Phil Collins driving around Los Angeles in a convertable (with Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford riding behind him in the back of a pickup truck with their instruments) and eventually coming to a stop outside his girlfriend's, only to find her talking to another man on the front walk. He has an unusual beard and Hawaiian shirt, but it works.
Music: A-
Lyrics: B+
It's a great Genesis song that's simple (unusual of most of their songs) and has a great lyric. Both the music and lyrics illustrate the song's tale and feelings well, which is what makes a song good.
Justin C.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Goodbye, Myles - You'll be Missed
This past weekend, I received some very shocking and unexpected news.
Actually, I'll go back a little further. Once or twice last week, I noticed someone Googling my old friend Myles and coming here. The searches originated from Baltimore I believe, so I knew that it would be his mother, who to my past knowledge lives in America, likely doing the searching. I wondered why.
It was a message that sat in the 'Other' menu on Facebook, in the messages page. It was from his mother. I had just gotten home from work, after eleven, and I was reading a message that said my old friend had recently passed away.
People die every day, of all sorts of causes, natural or unnatural. But, as anyone would say, almost tirelessly, it's quite different when it was someone you knew personally. That experience had never been with me before. People have died in my family, but always when I was very young, or when it was someone I never knew or often thought about, like a great-aunt. And even then, those people are much older and have lived a full life, at least fuller than the life of a twenty-year-old.
He died in a coma on the 3rd of September, exactly a week ago. He wasn't even twenty-one yet.
In my entire life, in anyone's entire life up to this point, this age, this maturity, you'd never expect someone your age - or, in my case, younger than me by four months - to die. That's just, nah, way too young, very unlikely, it would have to be a freak accident or something. Mortality is a difficult lesson to become acquainted with. Even with Myles' past, with his issues and struggles with bipolar and chain-smoking, etc., I would not think he would leave this reality, be nothing but a memory.
I only found out about this on Saturday night, two nights ago. I'm still having trouble believing that a person I once talked to, touched, rode bikes with, have memories of, is no longer in any real existence. He's still alive in many ways to me, and not dead.
The reality is, of course, that he is no longer living and breathing and walking about. The reality is that he is not a part of it at all, no more, nevermore.
Myles G. Mastronardi was born on October 18th, 1991. He has a younger sister by two years named Brianna. I first met him on the first day of grade six at Century Public School. He approached me on the play structure when our teacher let us out at morning recess earlier than the rest of the school. I'm not particularly sure why he chose to befriend me, but he did and that's what counts.
Our friendship was not perfect. Myles had some issues. I won't go into detail here because I probably won't say it properly, and I don't want to focus on whatever was wrong with him. We had ups and downs. Sometimes he'd happily lead me, Duncan and a girl named Zoe in a game he championed called 'manhunt' during recesses. Other times, particularly that winter, I would see him outside the school in the morning and he'd bluntly talk me down before I said anything to him - "don't say hi to me Justin." Despite his disadvantages or his quirks, he made things interesting and fun most of the time. He had half of the younger grades playing manhunt with him every recess, and always enjoyed larger groups of people, whether they were in grade one or not. He was a super-fast runner, only outrun by Zoe.
He would put us through a very turbulent time in seventh grade at Sir Winston (largely because he had trouble adjusting between the contrasting personalities between a lower-functioning autistic boy named Greg who was a former friend, and my own maturer demeanor) but would be my only friend in eighth grade, with the rest of the class indifferent to me, or hostile. He still had his negative traits, but they didn't overshadow the friendship, and he made my days worthwhile.
Getting into high school, he was a more timid, quiet character that I dedicated all of my free time with. But he would only be around for the ninth grade, slipping out and stopping at the beginning of tenth when he started talking to the more shady characters. I'd known him for four years by that point, constantly, and from then I would only see him infrequently and irregularly. I think him and I left our childhood together, starting as school kids in elementary school and ending up as teens in our sophomore year in high school. I'd see him almost every weekend that winter, and we'd go bowling, or hang around his house, or generally just cheer each other up. He'd been diagnosed with bipolar around that point, so if he was feeling down, seeing him was not much of an option.
My visits or encounters with Myles would become ever less regular until I basically went a full year without hearing from him. In the spring of 2009, my then-friend Fred, who'd known Myles at Sir Winston, brought him up and we decided to reconnect with him. He had been living alone with his grandfather at that point. 2009 would be the last time I saw him in person. I'd see him in June, then I'd see him for his birthday - his eighteenth - and that Montana's lunch would be the last birthday I'd celebrate with him. After that, we really lacked any more interest in continuing whatever we had left. Myles had gone on to enjoy friendships with other people that I didn't involve myself with, and I left him to do what he preferred.
I'd go on with my own life as usual, and Myles would move in with his mother in the U.S. According to her message, he'd been doing a lot better for this past year, cleaning up his ways and being a better person in general. I'm happy for him. I'm glad he made that effort. I'm very glad he changed himself around. I used to lecture him often when I'd see him - about smoking, or the kinds of people he socialized with, or the way he treated his grandfather or relatives - and while the help I tried to give him may not have worked at that time, he still turned everything into a better outlook. The only snag, the only interminable problem, was his sudden death. I think that's unfair.
He died of lithium poisoning from his bipolar medication (according to my speculation after reading the 'bipolar' in parenthesis after the lithium sentence in the message I got) and was found to also have an enlarged heart. He was way too young to die in my opinion, and I miss him quite a bit. In the end, it doesn't matter the fate of the universe whether or not he was a good or bad friend in the past, or what his disadvantages were. A person can change - and Myles did - for the better or for the worse. A person can be disgusting or beautiful, and they can adapt. But dead, they can't. Not in this world. Myles didn't have a chance. Alive, he could, would have been a great adult. But, dead, he didn't get much of a chance. That's pretty freaking unfair.
I won't forget you, Myles, and I forgive you for all of the negative aspects of our past friendship. You were, in the end, a pretty good friend, and I owe a few good years to you. And when I die, if I do end up in the corner store - I'll see you there. We'll play manhunt again, like in the times of our childhood, back in the days of sunny days and pure innocence.
Goodbye for now.
Justin S. Campbell
Actually, I'll go back a little further. Once or twice last week, I noticed someone Googling my old friend Myles and coming here. The searches originated from Baltimore I believe, so I knew that it would be his mother, who to my past knowledge lives in America, likely doing the searching. I wondered why.
It was a message that sat in the 'Other' menu on Facebook, in the messages page. It was from his mother. I had just gotten home from work, after eleven, and I was reading a message that said my old friend had recently passed away.
People die every day, of all sorts of causes, natural or unnatural. But, as anyone would say, almost tirelessly, it's quite different when it was someone you knew personally. That experience had never been with me before. People have died in my family, but always when I was very young, or when it was someone I never knew or often thought about, like a great-aunt. And even then, those people are much older and have lived a full life, at least fuller than the life of a twenty-year-old.
He died in a coma on the 3rd of September, exactly a week ago. He wasn't even twenty-one yet.
In my entire life, in anyone's entire life up to this point, this age, this maturity, you'd never expect someone your age - or, in my case, younger than me by four months - to die. That's just, nah, way too young, very unlikely, it would have to be a freak accident or something. Mortality is a difficult lesson to become acquainted with. Even with Myles' past, with his issues and struggles with bipolar and chain-smoking, etc., I would not think he would leave this reality, be nothing but a memory.
I only found out about this on Saturday night, two nights ago. I'm still having trouble believing that a person I once talked to, touched, rode bikes with, have memories of, is no longer in any real existence. He's still alive in many ways to me, and not dead.
The reality is, of course, that he is no longer living and breathing and walking about. The reality is that he is not a part of it at all, no more, nevermore.
Myles G. Mastronardi was born on October 18th, 1991. He has a younger sister by two years named Brianna. I first met him on the first day of grade six at Century Public School. He approached me on the play structure when our teacher let us out at morning recess earlier than the rest of the school. I'm not particularly sure why he chose to befriend me, but he did and that's what counts.
Our friendship was not perfect. Myles had some issues. I won't go into detail here because I probably won't say it properly, and I don't want to focus on whatever was wrong with him. We had ups and downs. Sometimes he'd happily lead me, Duncan and a girl named Zoe in a game he championed called 'manhunt' during recesses. Other times, particularly that winter, I would see him outside the school in the morning and he'd bluntly talk me down before I said anything to him - "don't say hi to me Justin." Despite his disadvantages or his quirks, he made things interesting and fun most of the time. He had half of the younger grades playing manhunt with him every recess, and always enjoyed larger groups of people, whether they were in grade one or not. He was a super-fast runner, only outrun by Zoe.
He would put us through a very turbulent time in seventh grade at Sir Winston (largely because he had trouble adjusting between the contrasting personalities between a lower-functioning autistic boy named Greg who was a former friend, and my own maturer demeanor) but would be my only friend in eighth grade, with the rest of the class indifferent to me, or hostile. He still had his negative traits, but they didn't overshadow the friendship, and he made my days worthwhile.
Getting into high school, he was a more timid, quiet character that I dedicated all of my free time with. But he would only be around for the ninth grade, slipping out and stopping at the beginning of tenth when he started talking to the more shady characters. I'd known him for four years by that point, constantly, and from then I would only see him infrequently and irregularly. I think him and I left our childhood together, starting as school kids in elementary school and ending up as teens in our sophomore year in high school. I'd see him almost every weekend that winter, and we'd go bowling, or hang around his house, or generally just cheer each other up. He'd been diagnosed with bipolar around that point, so if he was feeling down, seeing him was not much of an option.
My visits or encounters with Myles would become ever less regular until I basically went a full year without hearing from him. In the spring of 2009, my then-friend Fred, who'd known Myles at Sir Winston, brought him up and we decided to reconnect with him. He had been living alone with his grandfather at that point. 2009 would be the last time I saw him in person. I'd see him in June, then I'd see him for his birthday - his eighteenth - and that Montana's lunch would be the last birthday I'd celebrate with him. After that, we really lacked any more interest in continuing whatever we had left. Myles had gone on to enjoy friendships with other people that I didn't involve myself with, and I left him to do what he preferred.
I'd go on with my own life as usual, and Myles would move in with his mother in the U.S. According to her message, he'd been doing a lot better for this past year, cleaning up his ways and being a better person in general. I'm happy for him. I'm glad he made that effort. I'm very glad he changed himself around. I used to lecture him often when I'd see him - about smoking, or the kinds of people he socialized with, or the way he treated his grandfather or relatives - and while the help I tried to give him may not have worked at that time, he still turned everything into a better outlook. The only snag, the only interminable problem, was his sudden death. I think that's unfair.
He died of lithium poisoning from his bipolar medication (according to my speculation after reading the 'bipolar' in parenthesis after the lithium sentence in the message I got) and was found to also have an enlarged heart. He was way too young to die in my opinion, and I miss him quite a bit. In the end, it doesn't matter the fate of the universe whether or not he was a good or bad friend in the past, or what his disadvantages were. A person can change - and Myles did - for the better or for the worse. A person can be disgusting or beautiful, and they can adapt. But dead, they can't. Not in this world. Myles didn't have a chance. Alive, he could, would have been a great adult. But, dead, he didn't get much of a chance. That's pretty freaking unfair.
I won't forget you, Myles, and I forgive you for all of the negative aspects of our past friendship. You were, in the end, a pretty good friend, and I owe a few good years to you. And when I die, if I do end up in the corner store - I'll see you there. We'll play manhunt again, like in the times of our childhood, back in the days of sunny days and pure innocence.
Goodbye for now.
Justin S. Campbell
Monday, September 3, 2012
Two Singles
Over three years ago, I wrote a post about my interest at how 'close' the songs 'Rio' and 'Our House' were, and how I discovered them.
Today, there are a lot more similarities that I've uncovered, and I figured I'd get a little more in detail this time.
Duran Duran is a band that started up in Birmingham in the late 1970s - around 1978 or so - and it was started by bassist John Taylor and keyboardist Nick Rhodes. Madness, on the other hand, began in 1976 as a three-piece consisting of Chris Foreman, Mike Barson and Lee Thompson (guitar, piano and sax, respectively). They originated throughout London but usually met and performed in clubs in Camden Town.
Both bands at some point used AIR (Associated Independent Recording) Studios, with Duran Duran producing under Colin Thurston and Madness under Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley. The former recorded their hit album Rio around January-February 1982, while Madness used the same studio in late summer, early September. 'Rio' as a single was released on the 1st of November; 'Our House' was released eleven days later.
On the UK Singles chart, 'Rio' peaked at number nine, while 'Our House' made it to the fifth position, managing to score the seventh position in the U.S. Billboard Chart ('Rio' only got to number 14).
Duran Duran would start to fall apart in terms of its original line-up in 1985, performing with alternative line-ups and forms throughout the years up to the present. Madness would dissolve in 1986 over creative and musical disagreements and direction, reuniting in 1992 for a Madstock concert and doing it again every two years throughout the 1990s, eventually reforming to produce a new album in 1999. They'd create an alter-ego in the mid 2000s called The Dangermen before reuniting together again to produce another new album, and are currently producing their next effort, minus bass player Mark Bedford.
Many years after those two hit songs first hit the airwaves, around 2000-2001, while listening to the radio before falling asleep - a routine I did every night - Kool FM would air a commercial or ad of sorts that originated with the station itself. I think it was a marketing thing where the station had created its own hits album or something. Either way, the choruses of both songs played, one fading into the other, starting with 'Our House.'
I'd stated before that I'd found 'Our House' (its chorus) very well-done-sounding and 'Rio' very 'fun' and 'bright.'
To explain it more clearly, the instant visual that formed in my mind when I heard Madness (particularly the voices over, but still including, the music) was this: A morning scene of tall row-houses, likely in a place like New York, due to the sound of the voices. They were pink and orange-coloured, and bright, and well-kept, due to the sound of the music. The voices sounded clear and colourful. My vantage point was walking out on a stoop from one of those row-houses and seeing all the ones opposite the street. From that entire visual, it synesthetically translated to me as 'well-done' and executed. Perhaps the song structured around that chorus would have goodness to offer if I ever heard the whole thing.
It faded into 'Rio.' Hearing the catchy guitar sound and Simon Le Bon's voice sing those lyrics - 'her name is Rio and she dances on the sand' - I visualized almost exactly that. A scene close to golden sand, with two legs, then looking up to reveal a woman dancing lightly in what looked like morning light. Water in the distance. The lyrics/voice gave me the woman and sand. The guitar gave me the light and the direction it was shining, as well as the direction I was looking in the scene. Therefore, it seemed 'fun' to me.
Both, when I'd hear them in that Kool FM ad, would sound interesting and alluring to me, things I would get the feeling I'd like the actual songs, but they wouldn't make me go crazy wondering what songs they were or how I could find them. They don't sound the same nor do they sound close to the same, by almost a long shot. And that's just the choruses.
I would hear the full 'Our House' during an evening road trip back to my house from my maternal grandparents around two years later or so. I think it was probably 2002. It was dark out and my aunt was skipping through a large amount of songs burnt on a CD. She used to play 'Another Brick in the Wall' by Pink Floyd often, and I always enjoyed the sound of the older songs.
'Our House' was one of those rare things where you hear an instrument cue in and the whole song gets ten times better, and then another instrument cues in and the same happens. Guitar fades in, then piano and drums. Sounds good, good pace and sound. Bass slides in, wow, great substance. Trumpets - oh, geez, wow. Strings - heavenly.
The thing about that song that didn't happen for me when I would later hear 'Rio' was that I started to get the feeling towards the end of the first verse (Sugg's vocal timbre and inflections also upped the song for me that first time too) that this was connected to that 'our house' chorus I used to hear on the radio now and then. Maybe it was the piano or the beat, even though both are different between verses and chorus, maybe it was the genre and general sound of the music - but I started to just know that it was the same song leading up to that chorus. And it was.
The song structured around that chorus did have goodness to offer - so much I was overwhelmed when I heard it that first time. It was one of those rare times where every instrument, every lyric, everything in that entire song worked perfectly. The strings had the perfect melody. The trumpets cued at the right times. The piano, vocals, bass, strings, and trumpets all meshed amazingly. The drums had a great, on-the-move beat, great driving bass drum. And yet it was actually a moderately simple song. The thing that made it tick was pure cleverness - on the producer's part and the band's effort.
'Rio' was different altogether because it was two years after that, 2004, and it was late summer. I heard it in a car as well, on the radio, and it was kind of surprising for me because I heard its verse and didn't think once at all that that chorus would be what it lead up to. Also, Kool FM had by then long become Bob FM and the only music station that was played in my friends' car was the then new Hot 89.9 (they still call themselves 'new,' but that has all to do with their radio programming and nothing to do with the station's time on the air).
My childhood friend Jahdel had moved south to Barrhaven late that summer, and it was usual for my mother and I to help them deal with the move. Late one night, we were being driven home by his mother with the radio turned low when the song came on. I've already mentioned that there was this guitar and it sounded 'flashy.' The thing about that had to do with the low volume. I couldn't hear the bass or the drums and the dominant instrument is the guitar, which constantly played what sounded like a power chord to me, over and over, so it sounded almost over-produced, like the musicians liked to show off. From that, I expected them to deliver on the chorus. I basically listened to this flashy-sounding guitar for a minute or so, with the vocals and a high-speed keyboard sound that I almost paid no attention to, and then everything stopped (as in, the four-second break lead-in to the chorus started).
Then, almost out of nowhere to me, I was seeing the sand and the girl again as the guitar played and Simon Le Bon sung those well-known lyrics. I was hearing the entire choruses for the first time.
I was interested all of a sudden. They did deliver on the chorus. That was the other song. This was the full thing. I wanted to hear the rest - and I got to, as Jahdel's mother had decided to drive all the way around the block and enter the far side of the parking lots for some reason. There was a second verse, another chorus, a sax and bass solo, then the last verse and finishing choruses. I was really impressed by the last choruses as the snare drum became dominant.
The thing about those two songs is that they're very different, but I also like them for very different reasons, on very different levels. It has governed how I've guided my interest in both bands. Today, I've matured a large appreciation and admiration for the kind of sound Madness produced, while only being mildly attracted to Duran Duran. I mentioned that before. Though the songs are closer than I mentioned before as well.
For instance, they were recorded in the same studio. The two bands may or may not have used the same instruments even, at least some of them. Both songs have a reversed, fade-in intro ('Our House' uses a guitar whereas 'Rio' uses a reversed sound effect created by Nick Rhodes, who threw some metal rods onto the strings of the opened grand piano in the studio - possibly the same one Mike Barson played on 'Our House.' Both songs were released just over ten days from each other. Both bands were popular in the U.K. - Duran Duran was better-known internationally thanks to their expensively-produced, artistic music videos. In a documentary I saw on the band, there was a scene that panned across the cover of a music magazine from the 80s, with bands listed in popularity. Duran Duran was number one, of course, but Madness wasn't far back, only at number five.
Then you have the coincidences with me. I heard both of them in a radio ad. Just their attractive choruses, which are perhaps the part of the song that's supposed to hook the listener in the first place. One after the other. Then, in car rides that happened years apart from each other, I heard both of them. I'm not sure Duran Duran were very knowledgeable or interested in their contemporaries, but I do know Madness has commented on them a few times. They're both great bands.
Those are the similarities at least, but I think I know why I've gone the way I have now in terms of musical interests. In looking at my reactions and memories more closely, those two songs were even more different for me than I first though: 'Our House,' as I said earlier, was the kind of rare song where everything worked - every instrument, at the right time. From start to finish, I was awed when I first heard it. I even intuitively, or probably synesthetically, guessed correctly that it belonged to that chorus I first heard on Kool FM. But for 'Rio,' I was only ever attracted to the chorus - more specifically, the guitar in the chorus and the general image the lyrics give me. Andy Taylor's guitar playing wooed me, as well as Simon Le Bon's lyrics to a lesser extent. The rest of the song is high-standard - great music - but it's not enough to put me in awe, or in musical, synesthetic heaven. It's just plain good, that's all. With a great chorus.
One more thing to mention about the chorus of 'Rio' in particular is that it follows a popular, good-sounding procession. At least for me, anyway, any musical piece that starts with a note, heads two and a half musical tones lower for the second note, and then does the same for the third note a full tone lower, sounds appealing to me. Like E-B-D-A. E is two and a half tones from B, then D is a tone lower than E and, again, two and a half tones from A. 'Rio' follows this kind of piece, starting in E. The bass guitar plays around to each of those notes, and the guitar slides up and down to each of them as well. Therefore, it's already got the musical groundwork to be appealing to me. It's actually based on a song called 'Stevie's Radio Station' which is essentially a bass and guitar playing those four notes over and over again. It's a great sound and inspiration. But I only realized all of this musical stuff much later, years after I first heard it.
I will conclude this by saying that in light of my high interest in Madness, I have actually grown to have an ear for the songs of Duran Duran, and I do like their music in general. 'Rio' is only one song; I also like 'Hold Back the Rain,' 'Hungry Like the Wolf,' 'The Reflex,' and a few others. They have a good image and I can play the bass almost exactly like John Taylor on 'Rio' - and that bass line is fast and difficult. Madness may hold the top spot in terms of my musical interests, but Duran Duran isn't far behind - they're only at number five.
And they even used the same studio.
Justin C.
Today, there are a lot more similarities that I've uncovered, and I figured I'd get a little more in detail this time.
Duran Duran is a band that started up in Birmingham in the late 1970s - around 1978 or so - and it was started by bassist John Taylor and keyboardist Nick Rhodes. Madness, on the other hand, began in 1976 as a three-piece consisting of Chris Foreman, Mike Barson and Lee Thompson (guitar, piano and sax, respectively). They originated throughout London but usually met and performed in clubs in Camden Town.
Both bands at some point used AIR (Associated Independent Recording) Studios, with Duran Duran producing under Colin Thurston and Madness under Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley. The former recorded their hit album Rio around January-February 1982, while Madness used the same studio in late summer, early September. 'Rio' as a single was released on the 1st of November; 'Our House' was released eleven days later.
On the UK Singles chart, 'Rio' peaked at number nine, while 'Our House' made it to the fifth position, managing to score the seventh position in the U.S. Billboard Chart ('Rio' only got to number 14).
Duran Duran would start to fall apart in terms of its original line-up in 1985, performing with alternative line-ups and forms throughout the years up to the present. Madness would dissolve in 1986 over creative and musical disagreements and direction, reuniting in 1992 for a Madstock concert and doing it again every two years throughout the 1990s, eventually reforming to produce a new album in 1999. They'd create an alter-ego in the mid 2000s called The Dangermen before reuniting together again to produce another new album, and are currently producing their next effort, minus bass player Mark Bedford.
Many years after those two hit songs first hit the airwaves, around 2000-2001, while listening to the radio before falling asleep - a routine I did every night - Kool FM would air a commercial or ad of sorts that originated with the station itself. I think it was a marketing thing where the station had created its own hits album or something. Either way, the choruses of both songs played, one fading into the other, starting with 'Our House.'
I'd stated before that I'd found 'Our House' (its chorus) very well-done-sounding and 'Rio' very 'fun' and 'bright.'
To explain it more clearly, the instant visual that formed in my mind when I heard Madness (particularly the voices over, but still including, the music) was this: A morning scene of tall row-houses, likely in a place like New York, due to the sound of the voices. They were pink and orange-coloured, and bright, and well-kept, due to the sound of the music. The voices sounded clear and colourful. My vantage point was walking out on a stoop from one of those row-houses and seeing all the ones opposite the street. From that entire visual, it synesthetically translated to me as 'well-done' and executed. Perhaps the song structured around that chorus would have goodness to offer if I ever heard the whole thing.
It faded into 'Rio.' Hearing the catchy guitar sound and Simon Le Bon's voice sing those lyrics - 'her name is Rio and she dances on the sand' - I visualized almost exactly that. A scene close to golden sand, with two legs, then looking up to reveal a woman dancing lightly in what looked like morning light. Water in the distance. The lyrics/voice gave me the woman and sand. The guitar gave me the light and the direction it was shining, as well as the direction I was looking in the scene. Therefore, it seemed 'fun' to me.
Both, when I'd hear them in that Kool FM ad, would sound interesting and alluring to me, things I would get the feeling I'd like the actual songs, but they wouldn't make me go crazy wondering what songs they were or how I could find them. They don't sound the same nor do they sound close to the same, by almost a long shot. And that's just the choruses.
I would hear the full 'Our House' during an evening road trip back to my house from my maternal grandparents around two years later or so. I think it was probably 2002. It was dark out and my aunt was skipping through a large amount of songs burnt on a CD. She used to play 'Another Brick in the Wall' by Pink Floyd often, and I always enjoyed the sound of the older songs.
'Our House' was one of those rare things where you hear an instrument cue in and the whole song gets ten times better, and then another instrument cues in and the same happens. Guitar fades in, then piano and drums. Sounds good, good pace and sound. Bass slides in, wow, great substance. Trumpets - oh, geez, wow. Strings - heavenly.
The thing about that song that didn't happen for me when I would later hear 'Rio' was that I started to get the feeling towards the end of the first verse (Sugg's vocal timbre and inflections also upped the song for me that first time too) that this was connected to that 'our house' chorus I used to hear on the radio now and then. Maybe it was the piano or the beat, even though both are different between verses and chorus, maybe it was the genre and general sound of the music - but I started to just know that it was the same song leading up to that chorus. And it was.
The song structured around that chorus did have goodness to offer - so much I was overwhelmed when I heard it that first time. It was one of those rare times where every instrument, every lyric, everything in that entire song worked perfectly. The strings had the perfect melody. The trumpets cued at the right times. The piano, vocals, bass, strings, and trumpets all meshed amazingly. The drums had a great, on-the-move beat, great driving bass drum. And yet it was actually a moderately simple song. The thing that made it tick was pure cleverness - on the producer's part and the band's effort.
'Rio' was different altogether because it was two years after that, 2004, and it was late summer. I heard it in a car as well, on the radio, and it was kind of surprising for me because I heard its verse and didn't think once at all that that chorus would be what it lead up to. Also, Kool FM had by then long become Bob FM and the only music station that was played in my friends' car was the then new Hot 89.9 (they still call themselves 'new,' but that has all to do with their radio programming and nothing to do with the station's time on the air).
My childhood friend Jahdel had moved south to Barrhaven late that summer, and it was usual for my mother and I to help them deal with the move. Late one night, we were being driven home by his mother with the radio turned low when the song came on. I've already mentioned that there was this guitar and it sounded 'flashy.' The thing about that had to do with the low volume. I couldn't hear the bass or the drums and the dominant instrument is the guitar, which constantly played what sounded like a power chord to me, over and over, so it sounded almost over-produced, like the musicians liked to show off. From that, I expected them to deliver on the chorus. I basically listened to this flashy-sounding guitar for a minute or so, with the vocals and a high-speed keyboard sound that I almost paid no attention to, and then everything stopped (as in, the four-second break lead-in to the chorus started).
Then, almost out of nowhere to me, I was seeing the sand and the girl again as the guitar played and Simon Le Bon sung those well-known lyrics. I was hearing the entire choruses for the first time.
I was interested all of a sudden. They did deliver on the chorus. That was the other song. This was the full thing. I wanted to hear the rest - and I got to, as Jahdel's mother had decided to drive all the way around the block and enter the far side of the parking lots for some reason. There was a second verse, another chorus, a sax and bass solo, then the last verse and finishing choruses. I was really impressed by the last choruses as the snare drum became dominant.
The thing about those two songs is that they're very different, but I also like them for very different reasons, on very different levels. It has governed how I've guided my interest in both bands. Today, I've matured a large appreciation and admiration for the kind of sound Madness produced, while only being mildly attracted to Duran Duran. I mentioned that before. Though the songs are closer than I mentioned before as well.
For instance, they were recorded in the same studio. The two bands may or may not have used the same instruments even, at least some of them. Both songs have a reversed, fade-in intro ('Our House' uses a guitar whereas 'Rio' uses a reversed sound effect created by Nick Rhodes, who threw some metal rods onto the strings of the opened grand piano in the studio - possibly the same one Mike Barson played on 'Our House.' Both songs were released just over ten days from each other. Both bands were popular in the U.K. - Duran Duran was better-known internationally thanks to their expensively-produced, artistic music videos. In a documentary I saw on the band, there was a scene that panned across the cover of a music magazine from the 80s, with bands listed in popularity. Duran Duran was number one, of course, but Madness wasn't far back, only at number five.
Then you have the coincidences with me. I heard both of them in a radio ad. Just their attractive choruses, which are perhaps the part of the song that's supposed to hook the listener in the first place. One after the other. Then, in car rides that happened years apart from each other, I heard both of them. I'm not sure Duran Duran were very knowledgeable or interested in their contemporaries, but I do know Madness has commented on them a few times. They're both great bands.
Those are the similarities at least, but I think I know why I've gone the way I have now in terms of musical interests. In looking at my reactions and memories more closely, those two songs were even more different for me than I first though: 'Our House,' as I said earlier, was the kind of rare song where everything worked - every instrument, at the right time. From start to finish, I was awed when I first heard it. I even intuitively, or probably synesthetically, guessed correctly that it belonged to that chorus I first heard on Kool FM. But for 'Rio,' I was only ever attracted to the chorus - more specifically, the guitar in the chorus and the general image the lyrics give me. Andy Taylor's guitar playing wooed me, as well as Simon Le Bon's lyrics to a lesser extent. The rest of the song is high-standard - great music - but it's not enough to put me in awe, or in musical, synesthetic heaven. It's just plain good, that's all. With a great chorus.
One more thing to mention about the chorus of 'Rio' in particular is that it follows a popular, good-sounding procession. At least for me, anyway, any musical piece that starts with a note, heads two and a half musical tones lower for the second note, and then does the same for the third note a full tone lower, sounds appealing to me. Like E-B-D-A. E is two and a half tones from B, then D is a tone lower than E and, again, two and a half tones from A. 'Rio' follows this kind of piece, starting in E. The bass guitar plays around to each of those notes, and the guitar slides up and down to each of them as well. Therefore, it's already got the musical groundwork to be appealing to me. It's actually based on a song called 'Stevie's Radio Station' which is essentially a bass and guitar playing those four notes over and over again. It's a great sound and inspiration. But I only realized all of this musical stuff much later, years after I first heard it.
I will conclude this by saying that in light of my high interest in Madness, I have actually grown to have an ear for the songs of Duran Duran, and I do like their music in general. 'Rio' is only one song; I also like 'Hold Back the Rain,' 'Hungry Like the Wolf,' 'The Reflex,' and a few others. They have a good image and I can play the bass almost exactly like John Taylor on 'Rio' - and that bass line is fast and difficult. Madness may hold the top spot in terms of my musical interests, but Duran Duran isn't far behind - they're only at number five.
And they even used the same studio.
Justin C.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Going through a Mirror
I'm just posting this so I can take a screenshot of it.
It's a screenshot of a Facebook post on Tumblr, which is a screenshot on Flickr, which is a screenshot in a photo viewer on my Mac, which is now a screenshot on this blog. I'll end up taking a screenshot of this...and posting it on Facebook. Full circle.
Justin C.
Justin C.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Hey, Look at Me - I Remembered This Blog
I've completely shifted over to Tumblr, and it's all because my ex-ex-ex girlfriend properly conveyed the wonders - and sometimes, shock - of that site.
In result, this page and posts have been sorely neglected.
It's kind of funny, because on Tumblr, I almost never re-blog anything. I write. I should do that equally on here, but I don't. Perhaps one contributing factor is the knowledge that there is a higher likelihood of that dense, naive, emotionally inept ex-to-the-power-of-three of mine visiting my Tumblr blog than here.
It's quite an irrational, and unhealthy, focus. You know, this blog has a long, three-year history of slight references - and obvious anecdotes or words reflecting on or blatantly about - that one girl, and people still end up here occasionally because they Googled her full name; it is mentioned in a post I'd written in late May, 2009, about the Merivale Art Show. I won't bother mentioning it here. It's a personal post, not a news one.
From there, though, I would write a piece about closure in late June that year, when I graduated from high school and saw her in person for the final time (the fact that she is in Ottawa as I write this, but we are no longer ever talking or having anything to do with each other again, won't typically change anything). To my shock, she'd locate the post and read it, and comment, and it would spark the beginning of our online - and only online - communications.
Then came the odd song, and the story of me dying and finding her in a corner store from my childhood, which was of a romantic nature.
Then came the regrettable attacks I'd made a year later, a mistake I consider perhaps one of the worst of my life. I feel a little more vindicated nowadays due to the pain and shock and blame and ignorance, among many other things, that I'd receive from then on to this past spring. They'd be replaced by sympathetic, very apologetic posts when I realized the mistake.
I am unsure if I wrote anything else that was obvious afterwards, and I don't want to go back and check. I think the point of my writing all of this observation is to show how big an impact one girl can make, despite her issues or lack of self-awareness. Because she greeted me and smiled at me in high school, I fell down when I noticed her one lunchtime and tried to get her attention (luckily I was wearing a helmut); Because she was moving, I wrote a song about the matter; because I yearned for her, I started writing songs about her; because she opened up into a romantic relationship with me - twice - I wrote more songs, stories, and eventual hurtful attacks when she disappeared. I've written something like twenty-three songs now. At least 80% of them...something like sixteen or seventeen of them - are about her or an aspect of the relationship, or my fears, or wants regarding that one person.
I guess you could call it kind of obsessive. And here I am, writing an entire post about how much of a deal she was and probably still is. That's why, inside, I really want someone to be close to. That's why I sit and listen to the keyboard in a certain song similar to the one in that old 'In the City' tune I used to go crazy about; it makes me think of a sympathetic, loving girl who fits the visual description of the one I thought about synesthetically through 'In the City.'
That's another old thing - that song, that other girl. In college, in photography, I met another girl who looked very similar to the original one, but my ex-ex-ex reconnected with me before I could get close to her. Sigh.
I hardly listen to 'In the City' anymore these days. I keep in sporadic - very sporadic - touch with the pretty girl it made me think of, though she did wish me a happy birthday, which was a first this year. I remember writing a post on here in early 2010 in which I raved about my aunt trying to get me to add her on Facebook (which I would do that March).
Those people - well, girls - are long gone or not really a constant part of my life anymore. It's like the end of an era, a time, a feeling. Well, the feeling will never truly go away completely. I will always have a care and concern and love for my ex-times-three, as well as an attraction to and general infatuation with the off-beat, whacky, extroverted girl that the bright organ notes (C#-A) synesthetically remind me of. Funny, they're both friends on Facebook, though Brooke has naturally blocked me and all Henrietta has done in relation to me these days is wish me a happy birthday, which I'm thankful for at least.
The case is now closed. We grow up, we move on.
...But as you walk on by...will you call my name?
Justin C.
In result, this page and posts have been sorely neglected.
It's kind of funny, because on Tumblr, I almost never re-blog anything. I write. I should do that equally on here, but I don't. Perhaps one contributing factor is the knowledge that there is a higher likelihood of that dense, naive, emotionally inept ex-to-the-power-of-three of mine visiting my Tumblr blog than here.
It's quite an irrational, and unhealthy, focus. You know, this blog has a long, three-year history of slight references - and obvious anecdotes or words reflecting on or blatantly about - that one girl, and people still end up here occasionally because they Googled her full name; it is mentioned in a post I'd written in late May, 2009, about the Merivale Art Show. I won't bother mentioning it here. It's a personal post, not a news one.
From there, though, I would write a piece about closure in late June that year, when I graduated from high school and saw her in person for the final time (the fact that she is in Ottawa as I write this, but we are no longer ever talking or having anything to do with each other again, won't typically change anything). To my shock, she'd locate the post and read it, and comment, and it would spark the beginning of our online - and only online - communications.
Then came the odd song, and the story of me dying and finding her in a corner store from my childhood, which was of a romantic nature.
Then came the regrettable attacks I'd made a year later, a mistake I consider perhaps one of the worst of my life. I feel a little more vindicated nowadays due to the pain and shock and blame and ignorance, among many other things, that I'd receive from then on to this past spring. They'd be replaced by sympathetic, very apologetic posts when I realized the mistake.
I am unsure if I wrote anything else that was obvious afterwards, and I don't want to go back and check. I think the point of my writing all of this observation is to show how big an impact one girl can make, despite her issues or lack of self-awareness. Because she greeted me and smiled at me in high school, I fell down when I noticed her one lunchtime and tried to get her attention (luckily I was wearing a helmut); Because she was moving, I wrote a song about the matter; because I yearned for her, I started writing songs about her; because she opened up into a romantic relationship with me - twice - I wrote more songs, stories, and eventual hurtful attacks when she disappeared. I've written something like twenty-three songs now. At least 80% of them...something like sixteen or seventeen of them - are about her or an aspect of the relationship, or my fears, or wants regarding that one person.
I guess you could call it kind of obsessive. And here I am, writing an entire post about how much of a deal she was and probably still is. That's why, inside, I really want someone to be close to. That's why I sit and listen to the keyboard in a certain song similar to the one in that old 'In the City' tune I used to go crazy about; it makes me think of a sympathetic, loving girl who fits the visual description of the one I thought about synesthetically through 'In the City.'
That's another old thing - that song, that other girl. In college, in photography, I met another girl who looked very similar to the original one, but my ex-ex-ex reconnected with me before I could get close to her. Sigh.
I hardly listen to 'In the City' anymore these days. I keep in sporadic - very sporadic - touch with the pretty girl it made me think of, though she did wish me a happy birthday, which was a first this year. I remember writing a post on here in early 2010 in which I raved about my aunt trying to get me to add her on Facebook (which I would do that March).
Those people - well, girls - are long gone or not really a constant part of my life anymore. It's like the end of an era, a time, a feeling. Well, the feeling will never truly go away completely. I will always have a care and concern and love for my ex-times-three, as well as an attraction to and general infatuation with the off-beat, whacky, extroverted girl that the bright organ notes (C#-A) synesthetically remind me of. Funny, they're both friends on Facebook, though Brooke has naturally blocked me and all Henrietta has done in relation to me these days is wish me a happy birthday, which I'm thankful for at least.
The case is now closed. We grow up, we move on.
...But as you walk on by...will you call my name?
Justin C.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
When I was at work, a teen girl colleague came back to deal with cardboard. Then a guy came along with his, and tried to leave it for the girl to do it. They argued, with the guy ignoring and trying his best to coolly leave his crap with the girl, and the girl adamantly putting up a fight with as much swear words as she could muster.
It’s a common thing I see with certain girls at work. In talking to another colleague from dry foods, that was the guy’s way of “getting into” the girl - by being a cold, careless, inconsiderate asshole. That’s the reality - to guarantee lustful sex that’s probably meaningless, you just have to be as forceful and distant and inconsiderate as possible to her. As the dry foods guy said, that “shows her you’re tough.”
Yes, of course.
The sad thing is that that’s exactly what a lot of girls these days respond to, or want, or like. Forceful, mean, immature idiots who think with their bad attitude or genitals or muscles to get what they want.
Has humanity - at least for my generation, for people between the ages of 14 to 25 - become this meaningless and empty, shallow and thoughtless?
The dry foods guy finished his point by saying that it was alright, I was a 'rookie.' Of course he knew that. After all, he did hold the Brookside Chocolates box for me while I punched it back in late January due to the failure of my past deep, loving relationship (made that way by my considerate, nourishing manner).
I’m sad. I’m living in the wrong age if this is how things work. This is backwards. This ain’t for me.
Justin C.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Journalistic Reads
[Cross-posted from Tumblr, of all places]
I really like - and am inspired by - simple articles that are extended into novels, which are then in turn made into films. The collection of factual information, from a journalistic point of view, presented in a clear essay, which is then put into book form, I think is really neat and a great thing to do. Making it all visual and even clearer with the creation of a film version is even cooler to me.
There are great examples out there everywhere. The Late Shift, by journalist Bill Carter, is essentially a journalistic read on the early 1990s conflict surrounding The Tonight Show. It wasn't a newspaper article originally, but was written in the same style, and by a journalist. It was made into a film as well.
The same author wrote an updated book called The War For Late Night concerning a more recent conflict surrounding the same talk show (which could be made into a film).
Then you've got The Orchid Thief, originally an article written by Susan Orlean that she then expanded into a book; the 2000 movie Adaptation is based on this (though also largely about screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's struggle to write the actual screenplay to the book).
One morning in the 1950s, Truman Capote read an article about the killing of a farm family; interested, he travelled to the town and county where it occurred, interviewed everyone, particularly the captured killers, and wrote a book called In Cold Blood as a result; the 2006 movie Capote covers his methods of research in preparation for - and the writing of - that book.
After working for Rolling Stone Magazine, Cameron Crowe didn't have much to do - so he decided he'd go undercover at a high school and observe, analyze and compile information and experiences on what high school life is like. The result was a book - and the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
These were all journalistic/documentary style accounts put into essays or articles, or books, and expanded, and eventually even made into films. In my life, I've only written one essay - it was a five-part piece on a friendship I had with a troubled adolescent, written between the ages of sixteen and twenty. It's pretty interesting, and I hope to continue to write stuff, essays, like that. It's factual accounts and information put together in a clear, concise, permanent way - to paper. And who knows - maybe even to novel, and maybe even to film.
Justin C.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
I Need Some Balance Here
When I joined Tumblr early last year, I hardly ever went on there and rather posted here.
It's the opposite early this year, largely thanks to my ex-ex-ex girlfriend who really got me into hanging around on that site a lot more.
I need to find a way to balance my activity on both sites.
Sorry for the lack of anything here.
Justin C.
It's the opposite early this year, largely thanks to my ex-ex-ex girlfriend who really got me into hanging around on that site a lot more.
I need to find a way to balance my activity on both sites.
Sorry for the lack of anything here.
Justin C.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Subtle Change
I've been going through a lot of aerial photos of my old neighbourhood for the past while - I've been slowly purchasing and collecting images of the neighbourhood since the early 60s. My archive has slowly been building - I've got four images from the 60s, three from the 70s, one from the 80s, and two from the 90s. The last decade all comes from Google Earth or the City of Ottawa website (though I have one very badly worn 2002 image).
What I've really come to learn from examining all of these images, going through the visual, aerial-perspective history of where I used to live, is that nothing really changes that much.
Here's an example.
This is a forty-three year difference of the exact same area, cropped exactly the same.
Watching as an area develops and matures can be interesting, because you always get a different style of architecture, street pattern and character that has to do with when it was built. Minto built Parkwood Hills in the early 1960s. Since then, after developing the area, everything - on the outside - has essentially stayed the same.
I can't say that it's exactly, exactly the same - after all, there are trees in 2011, some roofs have been re-shingled, small things like a sidewalk and the arrangement of the little playground is apparent - but, in all essences, once an area is built, it stays largely the same in appearance throughout time. At least from above, but usually from the ground as well.
It hasn't drained my interest in seeing how the area has changed, since little has changed - but it's still something to note. Actually, some things appear and disappear throughout time. Where there's a crosswalk in the 2011 image at the top, there's only 'X's' in 1968. I've been told that that was how small intersections worked back then, no lights. People just pointed at the X painted on the asphalt, and drivers either courteously stopped to let them pass, or they'd drive on. The Xs stayed there until the road was re-surfaced in 1983.
Trees come and go, too. There were several trees in the courtyard I never saw before when I lived there in the years proceeding 1993. Evidently they'd been cut down.
The real changes take place inside buildings, really. My living room doesn't look the same as it did only a couple of years ago. Society, people change. The rooftops and outsides of buildings? Subtly, slowly, and over a lot of time.
This makes me think of where my father lives, downtown; his house is over 100 years old, and it looks basically the same as it did when it was built, at least on the outside. The majority of the street looks the same as it did, except for small things like add-ons people built, or certain properties that were either condemned or burnt down and rebuilt more recently. It's the same in the suburbs, Parkwood Hills, Barrhaven, wherever. In fifty years it's likely I can post the same image above, and it will really actually look the same, perhaps a different arrangement of trees, different-coloured roofs.
When my house was built (the current one I live in) the only probable difference in it from then and now is probably the siding, roof, garage door, and window frames. Maintenance, and perhaps now and then someone wanting a new look, is all that really dictates how things go with buildings. My lawn/backyard has slightly more difference - there's a tree in the front, a deck in the back, a hedge and a garden. The fence (and its colour) was built along with the house. Otherwise, when you develop an area, all that happens is the growth of greenery and change that comes with maintenance or someone looking for a structural facelift now and then.
Justin C.
What I've really come to learn from examining all of these images, going through the visual, aerial-perspective history of where I used to live, is that nothing really changes that much.
Here's an example.
Watching as an area develops and matures can be interesting, because you always get a different style of architecture, street pattern and character that has to do with when it was built. Minto built Parkwood Hills in the early 1960s. Since then, after developing the area, everything - on the outside - has essentially stayed the same.
I can't say that it's exactly, exactly the same - after all, there are trees in 2011, some roofs have been re-shingled, small things like a sidewalk and the arrangement of the little playground is apparent - but, in all essences, once an area is built, it stays largely the same in appearance throughout time. At least from above, but usually from the ground as well.
It hasn't drained my interest in seeing how the area has changed, since little has changed - but it's still something to note. Actually, some things appear and disappear throughout time. Where there's a crosswalk in the 2011 image at the top, there's only 'X's' in 1968. I've been told that that was how small intersections worked back then, no lights. People just pointed at the X painted on the asphalt, and drivers either courteously stopped to let them pass, or they'd drive on. The Xs stayed there until the road was re-surfaced in 1983.
Trees come and go, too. There were several trees in the courtyard I never saw before when I lived there in the years proceeding 1993. Evidently they'd been cut down.
The real changes take place inside buildings, really. My living room doesn't look the same as it did only a couple of years ago. Society, people change. The rooftops and outsides of buildings? Subtly, slowly, and over a lot of time.
This makes me think of where my father lives, downtown; his house is over 100 years old, and it looks basically the same as it did when it was built, at least on the outside. The majority of the street looks the same as it did, except for small things like add-ons people built, or certain properties that were either condemned or burnt down and rebuilt more recently. It's the same in the suburbs, Parkwood Hills, Barrhaven, wherever. In fifty years it's likely I can post the same image above, and it will really actually look the same, perhaps a different arrangement of trees, different-coloured roofs.
When my house was built (the current one I live in) the only probable difference in it from then and now is probably the siding, roof, garage door, and window frames. Maintenance, and perhaps now and then someone wanting a new look, is all that really dictates how things go with buildings. My lawn/backyard has slightly more difference - there's a tree in the front, a deck in the back, a hedge and a garden. The fence (and its colour) was built along with the house. Otherwise, when you develop an area, all that happens is the growth of greenery and change that comes with maintenance or someone looking for a structural facelift now and then.
Justin C.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Some Quotes
Since I don't really put much on here anymore, I'd like to get back into doing that.
Here's a few things I wrote weeks and weeks and weeks ago that I think are pretty good. By the way, sorry for the red words; I copied/pasted this stuff from Facebook, and it never works out properly for formatting, either grey on white or red, never black, so, well, here:
"Everyone is born, but no one is born with purpose. Perhaps your parents have a purpose for you, but is that ever usually played out? Not likely. It's not how the world works; instead, everyone is born, and eventually those people go out into the world with their own sense of purpose, and that purpose comes from the fact that it fulfills and makes them happy, and they created it, and it makes them tick.
Stop worrying that you have no purpose. Your purpose is what makes you happy, not a mysterious, unknown fate created by celestial forces that you must find out and obey. That gets you nowhere, and generates depression."
-Me, January 9th 2012
"There's a saying that goes "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Probably meant to convey that after a hard or difficult time, or in anticipation of huge success, this is where it starts.
I had that day a long time ago. I experienced the first day of the rest of my life on the twenty-second of June, in the year one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-one. The day I was born. After all, it was a hard and difficult time developing and laboring from the womb to birth, and every life is but a huge success. Be optimistic!!!"
Here's a few things I wrote weeks and weeks and weeks ago that I think are pretty good. By the way, sorry for the red words; I copied/pasted this stuff from Facebook, and it never works out properly for formatting, either grey on white or red, never black, so, well, here:
"Everyone is born, but no one is born with purpose. Perhaps your parents have a purpose for you, but is that ever usually played out? Not likely. It's not how the world works; instead, everyone is born, and eventually those people go out into the world with their own sense of purpose, and that purpose comes from the fact that it fulfills and makes them happy, and they created it, and it makes them tick.
Stop worrying that you have no purpose. Your purpose is what makes you happy, not a mysterious, unknown fate created by celestial forces that you must find out and obey. That gets you nowhere, and generates depression."
-Me, January 9th 2012
"There's a saying that goes "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Probably meant to convey that after a hard or difficult time, or in anticipation of huge success, this is where it starts.
I had that day a long time ago. I experienced the first day of the rest of my life on the twenty-second of June, in the year one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-one. The day I was born. After all, it was a hard and difficult time developing and laboring from the womb to birth, and every life is but a huge success. Be optimistic!!!"
-Me, January 8th 2012
"Sometimes asking or hoping I had a good day is just too futile to wonder anymore. My answer will always be the same, those who ask.
I have ascertained that I will not have a great day until I am in my late twenties/early thirties, have a wonderful career, a wife and children, and great life expectations. If that happens.
For now, though, asking someone who spends every day by himself or working at a boring repetitive job or even spending time with any people he cannot relate to at all if it's great isn't going to lead to great answers."
I have ascertained that I will not have a great day until I am in my late twenties/early thirties, have a wonderful career, a wife and children, and great life expectations. If that happens.
For now, though, asking someone who spends every day by himself or working at a boring repetitive job or even spending time with any people he cannot relate to at all if it's great isn't going to lead to great answers."
-Me, December 24th, 2011
"My idea of true love is loving someone no matter what their problems, faults, worries, and mistakes are. If they are imperfect, that just makes them even better. Whether they laugh too much or have some sort of disorder, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter."
It doesn't matter."
-Me, December 19th 2011
I found all those quotes in old Facebook statuses I wrote in my search for esoteric stuff I'd put up there. I think they're all right.
Justin C.
Lyrical Spread
Not much, eh?
Any kind of holiday is very boring for me; I don't really do anything. So, to stay very mildly productive, I created a poster containing lyrics from virtually every Madness song save a few.
Lyrics from every single except 'Sweetest Girl' are on there, and just about every album track and most B-sides. I think the album from which I chose the least lyrics were from the Mad Not Mad album, although I did use songs from every album up to their last - not including The Dangermen Sessions, which to me is rather an album of covers, none of which was produced by the band themselves. The only song in that entire poster that's not an original Madness song is 'It Must be Love.'
In choosing which lyrics from a song to include, I usually avoided the chorus because it was either too obvious, or the song was essentially summed up in just the chorus; I didn't want to put in something that everyone knows because, chances are, that's all everyone knows. 'Our House' is a good example: Everyone just remembers or knows the chorus.
I did, however, include a few choruses because they are largely iconic or well-known to Madness fans - things like 'My Girl's Mad at Me' or 'Hey you! Don't watch that, watch this!' which opens the song 'One Step Beyond...'
This kind of thing perfectly illustrates the versatility and wide-ranging view of the band: the content in that poster covers such a wide range of topics, from animal testing to the troubles in northern Ireland; you have commentary on the prospects of immigrants to Britain in the 1950s as well as the Falklands Islands conflict; you can find the cocky satire of England's National Health service as well as the airy description of a Sunday morning, or the cunning lyric focusing on child abuse and domestic violence.
I'd like to somehow get the band to see this...I think they'd like it and might want to produce it somehow, either as a poster or maybe a T-shirt. The lyrics I chose really describe their songs' message very well. And this really puts it out there that Madness were not just a simple little party-oriented, nutty-sounding, kid's clown fair type outfit that some have dismissed them to be; they know what they're talking about and they pull it off well - whether it's about marriage promises, being optimistically jaunty in wet weather, attempting to purchase condoms on one's 16th birthday, or just simply enjoying driving one's car.
Justin C.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
No Such Thing as Social Status
It's January 31st, 2012, and I haven't written anything this month and barely anything last month. I'd better get something down at least by now.
By the way, my holidays were only okay. Not great. They actually were the turning point for my relationship to go to hell (again, and for the final time, man I feel like an idiot) and the beginning of my year has been even less good, but it's going to get better (again).
This subject - social status - has been something at the back of my mind for awhile now, ever since I mailed off a Christmas and Birthday gift to my then-girl friend, who basically lives in a mansion. I expected that, and as such wasn't prone to any inferiority complex like in the past (not again, hah), but that's where the subject came up.
In my opinion, there is no such thing as social status at all. Rather, my perspective is that 'social status' is a mere product of some of the more sad and awful aspects of human nature.
Take someone who is a CEO. He's a bachelor with a high income and lives alone, except when entertaining neighbours or women. He lives in an affluent community built by a well-off developer of moderate-sized luxury homes. There's even a man-made lake, and the homes bordering it have their own private docks.
He has a maid and cookers and essentially a staff that cleans and maintains the house.
To look at that realistically, one person in a huge house with a paid staff - there is no merit in it. No fiscal merit or life style merit. Almost every single aspect of that kind of living is a 'want' and not a 'need.'
The only merit in something like that is to give him pride and arrogance, and the satisfaction of making everyone else not in his position envious. To give him a sense of eliteness, of imposing, proud demeanor.
Of course, being pampered and comfortable has something to do with it, but not really that much.
I think of my ex (rather, my ex-ex-ex) and her community and house: Huge, wide driveways, a private lake, gigantic houses, everything. I'm not going to complain or outline everything about that, but to have about three people living in such a large building - why not just buy an entire skyscraper? I'm sure you have the money for it.
In the event that I get good fortune in life, I wouldn't expunge myself like that. I'd only have a large house if I had a cheaper-by-the-dozen situation with twelve kids (they lived in a huge house in that movie too, but they needed it). I'm sure anyone who reads this would tell me I'm wrong, that as soon as I had the money, I'd be out buying cars and expensive photography equipment and a large dwelling, but no one who reads this knows me that well. Most of my money would sit in the bank or be donated now and then.
Too many people measure their happiness by how much money they have, or how popular they are. Life isn't like that, happiness isn't fuelled by that. Forget about social status. Rejoice in what you have. If you don't have or worry about the envi of others, they'll envy you for not even caring. Happiness is measured by what you truly enjoy in life, what keeps you going, what drives you, what you are passionate about, and in turn that's the purpose of life: To relax, enjoy it, and do what you want to do in the time that you have.
For those who think having the best of everything and ensuring everyone else notices that, I could care less about your private dock, your boat, several cars, etc. etc. etc. When you don't worry about how much better or worse others are around you, when you don't compare yourself, you end up only focusing on yourself and your own inherent greatness, and that's what matters. That's the true spirit of things.
Justin C.
By the way, my holidays were only okay. Not great. They actually were the turning point for my relationship to go to hell (again, and for the final time, man I feel like an idiot) and the beginning of my year has been even less good, but it's going to get better (again).
This subject - social status - has been something at the back of my mind for awhile now, ever since I mailed off a Christmas and Birthday gift to my then-girl friend, who basically lives in a mansion. I expected that, and as such wasn't prone to any inferiority complex like in the past (not again, hah), but that's where the subject came up.
In my opinion, there is no such thing as social status at all. Rather, my perspective is that 'social status' is a mere product of some of the more sad and awful aspects of human nature.
Take someone who is a CEO. He's a bachelor with a high income and lives alone, except when entertaining neighbours or women. He lives in an affluent community built by a well-off developer of moderate-sized luxury homes. There's even a man-made lake, and the homes bordering it have their own private docks.
He has a maid and cookers and essentially a staff that cleans and maintains the house.
To look at that realistically, one person in a huge house with a paid staff - there is no merit in it. No fiscal merit or life style merit. Almost every single aspect of that kind of living is a 'want' and not a 'need.'
The only merit in something like that is to give him pride and arrogance, and the satisfaction of making everyone else not in his position envious. To give him a sense of eliteness, of imposing, proud demeanor.
Of course, being pampered and comfortable has something to do with it, but not really that much.
I think of my ex (rather, my ex-ex-ex) and her community and house: Huge, wide driveways, a private lake, gigantic houses, everything. I'm not going to complain or outline everything about that, but to have about three people living in such a large building - why not just buy an entire skyscraper? I'm sure you have the money for it.
In the event that I get good fortune in life, I wouldn't expunge myself like that. I'd only have a large house if I had a cheaper-by-the-dozen situation with twelve kids (they lived in a huge house in that movie too, but they needed it). I'm sure anyone who reads this would tell me I'm wrong, that as soon as I had the money, I'd be out buying cars and expensive photography equipment and a large dwelling, but no one who reads this knows me that well. Most of my money would sit in the bank or be donated now and then.
Too many people measure their happiness by how much money they have, or how popular they are. Life isn't like that, happiness isn't fuelled by that. Forget about social status. Rejoice in what you have. If you don't have or worry about the envi of others, they'll envy you for not even caring. Happiness is measured by what you truly enjoy in life, what keeps you going, what drives you, what you are passionate about, and in turn that's the purpose of life: To relax, enjoy it, and do what you want to do in the time that you have.
For those who think having the best of everything and ensuring everyone else notices that, I could care less about your private dock, your boat, several cars, etc. etc. etc. When you don't worry about how much better or worse others are around you, when you don't compare yourself, you end up only focusing on yourself and your own inherent greatness, and that's what matters. That's the true spirit of things.
Justin C.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Calling Cards
Here comes the time for a new review on a song - and it's a Madness one.
The song 'Calling Cards' is an interesting little album track from their album 'Presents the Rise and Fall.' I first heard it years ago when I acquired a branded 'best of' CD under the '20th Century Masters' name. I'd never heard the song before prior to that, and why it was included on that CD (as it's not on most of their 'best of' or compilation discography) I don't particularly know. I'd approach the 20th Century brand in finding the answer, they put it together...
It opens with a sort of urgency. Do-do-dum...do-do-dum...as the piano gets more high-pitched and insistent. It's an easy-paced song that sounds similar to a sales or job pitch.
I don't listen to it much anymore, and it's not a remarkable song, but it's kind of funny in retrospect and does the job in getting the message across, what it's all about.
According to Lee Thompson on the old Madness website (before it was revamped and re-launched and the 'What's it all about?' pages on the songs disappeared) it was about "credit card fraudulency." He'd also said it 'goes hand in hand with 'Are you Coming (With Me)' in some ways.' Seeing as that song is about trying to pull someone out of a rut and waste due to drug addiction, that could work.
The lyrics tell the story from a fraudster's point of view. It's like he's giving you a pitch to come and work for or with him. It accentuates secrecy and intentional law-breaking, pointing out the 'firm of naughty boys' and having nothing to do 'with the constitution.' It also seems to be talking about the success and growth of such a corrupt company, i.e., "my twins work Brighton on a sunny day, they cover town with a shake of a hand" and "I need you and your returns to help build my company." Halfway through, and twice, the names of many banks are shouted out, such as the Midland Bank, Peoples' Bank, Bank of Scotland, etc. etc....followed by serious, pointed laughing.
It basically talks of working for a lot of money in a dirty, corrupt way, and it's very cheery and convincing.
I tend to enjoy the piano the most in the song. It sounds kind of dark but also cheery and poignant at the same time. The music is professional and well-executed as usual, and I find the focus of the song interesting...you don't see that very often, I think. It's one of the things about this band: Their songs focus on so many things, they're very well-rounded. Most bands talk about love and loss and politics, which is cool but can get too predictive and monotonous. Of course Madness have done the same many times, but I can still find a song they wrote for almost every occasion, and fit their lyrics into what I'm going through at any given time.
What most people fail to realize or look at is that beneath all that nutty humor, that party-like sound, there's a dark seriousness that points out the maturity and world-view of the band. The best example of this is their song (and only #1 hit) 'House of Fun.' Anyone listening to it right away, without much interest or real focus, would decide that it's a loony, almost kid-oriented circus/party song. It's joyful and ebullient, bright and honky-tonk. Even the lyrics sound fun and innocent. But anyone who knows the deepness of a Madness song and knows to listen to the lyrics, anyone who gave the band real thought and made the effort to focus and listen closely instead of writing them off as a silly nutty outfit would see that it's about a kid on his 16th birthday attempting to purchase condoms (age of consent is 16 in Britain) but is having trouble due to using party paraphernalia slang terms, confusing the chemist (pharmacist). That's where the lyric "This is a chemist, not a joke shop" comes from. And that's a serious topic that can be analyzed and discussed.
But going back to 'Calling Cards,' it's the same thing. I think the song's a pretty good one - not great, not something I'd want to listen to every day or even every week, but a good effort and well-written lyrics. The piano is the centrepiece of that number.
Music: B
Lyrics: A-
The only version on YouTube is the 'R1 Studio Session.' It's not the proper song and it doesn't have the laughing in the middle, but it's essentially the same thing, only a demo.
Not bad, not great, but good. I'd give it a listen - it's interesting.
Justin C.
The song 'Calling Cards' is an interesting little album track from their album 'Presents the Rise and Fall.' I first heard it years ago when I acquired a branded 'best of' CD under the '20th Century Masters' name. I'd never heard the song before prior to that, and why it was included on that CD (as it's not on most of their 'best of' or compilation discography) I don't particularly know. I'd approach the 20th Century brand in finding the answer, they put it together...
It opens with a sort of urgency. Do-do-dum...do-do-dum...as the piano gets more high-pitched and insistent. It's an easy-paced song that sounds similar to a sales or job pitch.
I don't listen to it much anymore, and it's not a remarkable song, but it's kind of funny in retrospect and does the job in getting the message across, what it's all about.
According to Lee Thompson on the old Madness website (before it was revamped and re-launched and the 'What's it all about?' pages on the songs disappeared) it was about "credit card fraudulency." He'd also said it 'goes hand in hand with 'Are you Coming (With Me)' in some ways.' Seeing as that song is about trying to pull someone out of a rut and waste due to drug addiction, that could work.
The lyrics tell the story from a fraudster's point of view. It's like he's giving you a pitch to come and work for or with him. It accentuates secrecy and intentional law-breaking, pointing out the 'firm of naughty boys' and having nothing to do 'with the constitution.' It also seems to be talking about the success and growth of such a corrupt company, i.e., "my twins work Brighton on a sunny day, they cover town with a shake of a hand" and "I need you and your returns to help build my company." Halfway through, and twice, the names of many banks are shouted out, such as the Midland Bank, Peoples' Bank, Bank of Scotland, etc. etc....followed by serious, pointed laughing.
It basically talks of working for a lot of money in a dirty, corrupt way, and it's very cheery and convincing.
I tend to enjoy the piano the most in the song. It sounds kind of dark but also cheery and poignant at the same time. The music is professional and well-executed as usual, and I find the focus of the song interesting...you don't see that very often, I think. It's one of the things about this band: Their songs focus on so many things, they're very well-rounded. Most bands talk about love and loss and politics, which is cool but can get too predictive and monotonous. Of course Madness have done the same many times, but I can still find a song they wrote for almost every occasion, and fit their lyrics into what I'm going through at any given time.
What most people fail to realize or look at is that beneath all that nutty humor, that party-like sound, there's a dark seriousness that points out the maturity and world-view of the band. The best example of this is their song (and only #1 hit) 'House of Fun.' Anyone listening to it right away, without much interest or real focus, would decide that it's a loony, almost kid-oriented circus/party song. It's joyful and ebullient, bright and honky-tonk. Even the lyrics sound fun and innocent. But anyone who knows the deepness of a Madness song and knows to listen to the lyrics, anyone who gave the band real thought and made the effort to focus and listen closely instead of writing them off as a silly nutty outfit would see that it's about a kid on his 16th birthday attempting to purchase condoms (age of consent is 16 in Britain) but is having trouble due to using party paraphernalia slang terms, confusing the chemist (pharmacist). That's where the lyric "This is a chemist, not a joke shop" comes from. And that's a serious topic that can be analyzed and discussed.
But going back to 'Calling Cards,' it's the same thing. I think the song's a pretty good one - not great, not something I'd want to listen to every day or even every week, but a good effort and well-written lyrics. The piano is the centrepiece of that number.
Music: B
Lyrics: A-
The only version on YouTube is the 'R1 Studio Session.' It's not the proper song and it doesn't have the laughing in the middle, but it's essentially the same thing, only a demo.
Not bad, not great, but good. I'd give it a listen - it's interesting.
Justin C.
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